Come on FC United!!

There’s something amazing happening tonight. FC United of Manchester, a club that didn’t even exist 5 years ago, are playing in the 1st round of the FA Cup against Rochdale.

It’s a difficult task for any non league club to make it through the preliminary games in order to get to the first round proper, but FCUM have done it.

The reason why it’s particularly amazing, and why even as an avid Liverpool supporter I’ll nonetheless be cheering on this group of Man United exiles tonight, is because this football club was built by the people.

FCUM was started by ordinary football fans. Today they continue to own it on a socialist basis, and it’s the supporters who govern it.

Those in charge of football think the game is only safe if it is passed from billionaire to billionaire. Clubs like FC United of Manchester, AFC Wimbledon, and AFC Liverpool which I founded in 2008, prove that malign view wrong.

The only people that football is safe with is the fans of each football club.

A victory tonight for FC United of Manchester is something that all football fans and all socialists should be cheering for.

I’ll be gigging tonight but I’ll be keeping an eye on the score. Best wishes to my many friends at FCUM. I salute everything you have achieved. Enjoy your moment of history tonight, and may you have another moment of history to follow – by winning and getting yourself into the hat for the second round draw.

5 comments

Good to see a Liverpool fan passing on his best wishes to FCUM. Sometime we need to not divide along club lines but act in the best interests of the working class sport that has been played on this emerald isle for nearly 150 years. It is being misappropriated by some, Liverpool came very close and may do so again, United are hanging by their fingernails and the Man City experiment is backed by genuine cash but the plug could still be pulled.

Meanwhile, we, the gullible average fan if we trot along to EPL grounds or subscribe to Sky are signing Rooney’s contract and agreeing to leveraged buy outs and Arab billionnaire takeovers. We need to stop and think, create a vehicle for the working class football supporter, and make sure this great game of ours isn’t killed by the breakaway corporate league also known as the Premiership.

Pete Grubb

sory for leaving it late to get back – FC were invited to appear live on Football Focus on the Saturday but refused because of the strike, no-one from the club would cross a picket line or make alternative arrangements to appear.